


Five Times the Captain Blushed and One Time He Definitely Didn't

by chaoticbaron



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humphrey just chills, Internalized Homophobia, Late Night Conversations, Love Confessions, M/M, Mamma Mia! References, cap is blushing, cap loves ABBA like all of us, cap's thoughts in italics, in character??, poor cap save him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29557902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticbaron/pseuds/chaoticbaron
Summary: The title really says it all.
Relationships: The Captain/Humphrey's Head (Ghosts TV 2019), The Captain/One Whole Humphrey (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 57





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> okay everyone listen up, a few things before we get started:  
> 1) I don't think this will ever happen, I just needed to write this down and get it out of my head;  
> 2) please, I've seen so much drama in this fandom recently, don't fight over ships, it's silly so peace and love everyone (I'm a bloody hippy like Julian says).  
> This is dedicated to my own personal advisor and one of my best friends, Emma. Thank you for always listening to me and helping me <3

Alright, he was dead. Not a big problem.  
Okay, maybe one problem. Five.  
Five equally dead people to be precise, who were talking all over each other.  
Very strange people. He just heard some names: Mary, Thomas...  
Maybe his soldiers were playing with him, recruiting some actors just to celebrate the end of the war, to say goodbye to their Captain.  
No, he saw his lifeless body on the bed; no doubts on his... _ghostly situation_?  
  
“Man with stick stayed! I win!” said that thing with really too much hair on itself.  
“Oh, don't flatter yourself, you won nothing.”  
This time was the young man to talk. The Captain gave him a better look.  
“Good Lord, young man! You have been shot!”  
he said, pointing the wound on the other man's abdomen with his swagger stick.  
He smiled sadly.  
“Oh, don't worry. Sometimes it still hurts but it's fine, thank you. I'm Thomas. Thomas Thorne. This overexcited person right here is Robin.”  
He said pointing the one who looked just like he was a caveman.  
“Oh, I'm so happy you stayed! I'm sure we're going to be great, great friends!”  
The Captain looked to his right: a young girl with dark skin, a very fancy dress and hair was basically bouncing on the spot, showing off probably her best and biggest smile.  
“My name is Kitty. She is Mary. And this one always grumpy is Fanny, but call her Lady Button.”  
The woman dressed in yellow beside Kitty waved at him while the other one dressed in grey put on a really annoyed face.  
“I'm not grumpy!”  
Robin came closer, putting a hand on his shoulder.  
“Sorry you dead. Your name?”  
The Captain just flinched when that hand touched him and Robin immediately noticed that, removing his hand.  
“Captain. Just call me the Captain.”  
Everyone just looked a bit startled by his answer, apart from Robin, but Kitty immediately took him by the hand, leading him out of the room. The Captain just wanted to free himself, but he had the feeling that the young (probably) Georgian lady would have been really offended by his gesture.  
“Come, let's go downstairs! It's a wonderful day!”  
  
For the Captain, it was really strange walking down those corridors, watching at people he knew just passing by him: not out of malice, but only because they couldn't see him.  
His stream of consciousness was interrupted by a voice, that made him notice that they actually were on the ground floor.  
“Hey! What's going on? Guys?”  
The Captain couldn't see where this voice was coming from, but it was clearly a man's. He saw Thomas approaching the farthest couch and crouching down, extending his arm under the said couch to pick up something.  
“Humphrey! New one in house!”  
Thomas got back on his feet, with his back still to the group.  
  
“Uh, that's nice! Well, not that much for them...”  
Thomas turned around and, much to the Captain's surprise, in his hands there was an actual head, of a well groomed man, with a glorious beard and moustache and the bluest of eyes. The Captain could do nothing but heavily blush.  
“Welcome! I'm Humphrey.”


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again, thank you for the kudos, ily <3

It was so overwhelming.  
Twenty years had passed and the Captain couldn't understand why he was still feeling all those strange flutters in his stomach every time Humphrey was anywhere near him.  
  
_Bury the emotions and never let them out, remember._  
  
It was a good thing that the nobleman somehow always ended in some corner of the house, forgotten by his own body: he didn't wanted to see him more than necessary. Not that he had offended him in any way; on the contrary, Humphrey was always kind, a ready wit and –  
  
_For the love of God, you're an officer of his Majesty the King, pull yourself together man._  
  
At midday, the Captain was patrolling every room of the house as usual, to make sure everything was alright. As he entered the library, he saw the nobleman's head on the little table beside the sofa, his face to the bookshelves.  
“Hey, anybody there? I already read all the books titles. Multiple times. I'm getting bored. Anyone?”  
The Captain sighed.  
  
_Come on, it's just Humphrey asking you to move his head somewhere else, not a big deal._  
  
Slowly, he approached the table where the head was located and lifted him up.  
“Oh, thank you so much. You can put me on the piano or over the fireplace. Or everywhere else is fine, really.”  
The Captain didn't say a word and set off for the living room.  
“Tell me, Captain, am I really that obnoxious?”  
The man stopped walking.  
“How did you –?”  
“Know it was you? Well, I know how Robin and Mary smell like and just how much the other three like to talk, it's just logic. So?”  
The Captain thought about it.  
“You are not obnoxious. But I am an officer of his Majesty the King and I have my responsibilities, I cannot always spend my time with you civilians.”  
Humphrey laughed softly.  
“If you say so. In nearly twenty years since you're dead, I think this is the longest conversation we ever had.”  
The Captain blushed, sensing again that horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach.  
  
_And with a good reason._  
  
“Thinking about it, this is actually the first time you've taken me and moved me somewhere else.”  
While Humphrey was occupied laughing, the Captain started walking again towards the stairs, feeling the other man's soft hair between his fingers, really hoping not to bump into one of his fellow ghosts on the way, because he was sure they could have easily mistaken him for the Red Ensign.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Red Ensign: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Ensign  
> it's a red flag you get the point lol


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, thank you for kudos ily

Thomas was pacing around the room, reciting his verses dramatically. When he had finished, Pat and Kitty started clapping enthusiastically, while the others just sighed in relief.  
“I wrote this poem for my wonderful lady Emma. Oh, her eyes! Her eyes were as green and wild as the rolling hills by her estate.”  
Without even lifting his gaze from the chessboard, Julian interrupted the poet's rambling.  
“And where was that?”  
Thomas turned around to face the trouser-less politician and the caveman.  
“Her estate? Derbyshire. Why?”  
Julian smirked slightly.  
“Nothing, really. One time I was in South Derbyshire, and I... let's say I tried something a bit different. What were their names? Ah, I forgot, but I remember we had fun. A lot of fun. _Menage a trois_ , if you know what I mean.”  
Fanny and The Captain just sighed in resignation, while Kitty and Mary were just very confused.  
Pat moved his glasses awkwardly.  
“You said it wrong, mate. It's pronounced –”  
“Ménage à trois.”  
Everyone turned to look at the piano.  
Humphrey' head was lying there, smiling.  
“Very good, Humphrey. Great pronunciation. Anyway, Impressions Club! Let's go upstairs.”  
From his spot behind the couch, the Captain saw Pat quickly getting up and running up the stairs, followed by Kitty and Mary, who were still very confused by Julian's speech and a never-been-more-outraged Fanny, a grumbling Robin because of the interrupted chess game, followed by Thomas and Julian engaged in a deep conversation.  
“You and who else, sorry?”  
“Oh, just another MP. And an intern. Very handsome, as I recall.”  
Julian winked at Thomas, but the Captain shrugged his shoulders, not paying too much attention to it.  
  
“What are you doing, aren't you going to join them?”  
The Captain looked at those blue eyes who were staring at him from the piano. Straightening his back, he moved closer to the window, keeping his distance from the instrument.  
After some minutes, the Captain broke the silence.  
“How come you know French so well?”  
He didn't know where it came from, but he realized he didn't know that much about the other man.  
Humphrey laughed softly.  
“I don't really know it that well. You know, my wife was French and she never learned English, so I always heard her talking in French to her maids and friends. And at least I had to learn how to pronounce correctly some words to make her understand me.”  
The Captain just nodded, to let him know he was listening to him.  
“I didn't know you had a wife.”  
“You never asked.”  
Even though the Captain wasn't looking at him, he knew that Humphrey was smiling, like he always did.  
  
“What about you?”  
The Captain turned to face the nobleman, confusion written all over his face.  
“Wife?”  
He started to feel very uncomfortable, tensing up while turning back to the window.  
“No.”  
“Girlfriend?”  
He knew that it wasn't possible, but he was very sure he could feel little beads of sweat on his forehead.  
“No.”  
Humphrey scoffed.  
“I don't believe you. Never been in love?”  
What the hell was happening.  
“I– uh– good Lord. I don't know.”  
Silence. It was deafening.  
  
“Maybe... someone else? Not necessarily a woman.”  
  
That was the final blow. The Captain felt like he had died again. He turned again to the piano, cheeks redder and hotter than fire, pointing his swagger stick right into Humphrey's face.  
“That's quite enough of that! Don't you dare insinuating something like that ever again!”  
He hurried out of the room, to the kitchen, out in the garden.  
He couldn't feel the cold air on his skin but he still felt so, so cold.  
  
_Why did he say that?  
It hurts. Everything.  
I don't know how to stop it.  
Please, stop it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone save cap pls


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we are, Alison and Mike are finally here and they're making them watch Mamma Mia!  
> I swear these jumps forward in time have a meaning (also Cap avoids Humphrey for very long periods lol).

Alison promised that everyone would like that movie. Both Pat and Julian were so happy about being able to listen to songs that had been the soundtrack of their youth.  
The scout leader was basically glowing with happiness.  
“All the songs are by this Swedish group called ABBA.” Explained Alison.  
“They chose this name because the first letters of the members' names are A, B, B and A!” continued Pat.  
Thomas was a bit worried.  
“So, the songs are also in Swedish?”  
Julian shook him, gripping his shoulders.  
“Don't worry, fancy pants. They sing in English.”  
Thomas was ready to start a very long fight with the politician, but Alison basically killed him again with her eyes.  
  
Mike pressed play, the movie started and everyone shut up: Alison and Mike were sitting in the middle, Kitty was at Alison's right with Thomas, Julian beside him on the armrest and Pat on the opposite one and Mary behind him, Fanny was at Mike's left while Robin was sitting on the floor with Humphrey's head in his lap. The Captain was watching them from the windowsill, a small smile on his face: the plot had sounded really frivolous and pointless to his ears, but he had to admit that the movie was turning out to be really enjoyable and the songs were all very catchy.  
  
When Mike turned off the tv, everyone started theorising about the real father's identity while heading to their bedrooms.  
Pat waved goodnight to the Captain, who gave a little acknowledging nod and when he was finally alone, he looked back to the window, out in the gardens.  
It was raining and thinking back to those Greek landscapes he just saw in the movie, landscapes he could have never reach, suddenly made him unbearably sad. He realised he was actually humming one of those songs.  
  
_How did that go?_  
“Don't go wasting your emotion  
Lay all your love on me...”  
_Well, that was more than catchy._  
  
“What are you doing?”  
The Captain (metaphorically) jumped out of his skin, making his left leg pass through the sofa and if he were alive he would have surely knocked the precariously placed remote control left on the armrest to the floor with a crash, but he wasn't, so he didn't.  
Straightening his uniform, his face redder than a tomato, he approached the couch, trying to understand who had interrupted his thoughts.  
When he entered in his visual field, he noticed Humphrey's head on the sofa's cushions, as Robin had probably left him there for the night.  
The nobleman had regret written all over his face.  
“I'm sorry, I didn't want to scare you, but I didn't know you could sing that well.”  
The Captain blushed more than humanly, and ghostly, possible.  
“Um, well, you see, I – I didn't think someone was still in –”  
“Don't worry, I won't tell the others.”  
Humphrey winked at him, smiling.  
The Captain gripped his swagged stick so hard his knuckles became white.  
“I – I have to go. Goodnight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cap singing ABBA. this is something we all need to witness.


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Years pass, things are always the same... maybe.

Since Mike and Alison's children left Button House, it was slowly returning to be more quiet. Fanny still fell out of the window, screaming every morning and Thomas whined literally every five minutes but it wasn't the same: children's laughs and cries, teenagers' fights with their parents were something completely different.  
The Captain sighed. Time just kept passing but nothing changed: no one had managed to “move on”, not even young Jemima.  
It was late, late at night, the drawing room was already arranged for the wedding party that was meant to be held the next day, everyone was fast asleep and it was quiet.  
Awfully quiet.  
  
Suddenly, he heard footsteps coming from his left: Humphrey's body was wandering like he always did in search of his head, his hands stretched in front of him like if he could have touched his surroundings.  
The Captain watched him carefully while he was approaching. When the body arrived right in front of him, he stopped walking and he turned to face the Captain.  
The Captain backed away from him, to the window but he had to stop because he didn't want to fall Fanny-style.  
  
_Not you. Not now._  
  
Alison had helped him to understand many part of his being throughout those years but this was too hard: figuring out you like men is one thing but figuring out you like Humphrey in particular is completely different.  
Humphrey's body took another step forward, trapping the Captain.  
“Good Lord, Humphrey, what are you –”  
But he stopped, remembering that his ears were on a head that in that precise moment was probably very far from there.  
Humphrey's body raised his hands, touching with his left hand the Captain's Sam Browne and with his right, the bar above his breast pocket.  
The Captain just froze: no one of his fellow ghosts had ever came this close on purpose since he had died, almost a century ago.  
  
The nobleman's hands travelled up to his shoulders, studying meticulously all his badges and medals. Then they went on his neck, his jaw. The Captain was pretty sure he was going to die again: he closed his eyes, hearing that evil voice in the back of his head, telling him he was so, so wrong, all of this was wrong, that he shouldn't have let another man touch him like that. But when he felt those gentle fingers lightly touching his eyebrows, his eyelids, his nose, his moustache and his lips, his whole face became red like the nobleman's coat: Humphrey was just trying to understand who was standing right in front of him and the Captain felt his heart breaking into a million pieces. When he had finished the inspection, Humphrey lowered his hands again and the body slowly turned away, resuming his head-searching, stumbling in the dark towards a wall.  
  
The Captain sat on the windowsill, exhausted, watching Humphrey walking through the wall and he was left alone with his thoughts once again. He wanted to stop that body, hold him, hug him, tell him that he would help him finding his head, but he didn't.  
He looked out of the window and that memory reappeared once again in front of his eyes: a young man waved at him from the gate and the tears started falling.  
  
_How was it possible for ghosts to have their own personal ghosts?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry Havers, I always use you as a plot device.


	6. + One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even the walls noticed Cap's felling for the nobleman and the latter really had enough. Especially on his death day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this time he didn't blush because he's white as a ghost (ha ha I'm very funny I know)  
> also sorry again for using Havers just as a plot device I'm really so sorry I love him

The years went by and Alison was getting older but her friends' death days were basically impossible to forget. Not Robin's though: at this point, he didn't even bother to remember it himself.  
Like every morning in the last thirty years, Alison timed the Captain's run, played a record for Thomas, helped Robin with his crosswords and Julian playing with the laptop, she put on a random show on TV for Pat and turned pages in Kitty and Mary's books. Suddenly, to her surprise, she noticed that the little table where Humphrey's head used to be every morning was empty.  
“Kitty, do you know where Humphrey is? Today is his death day, I got something special for him.”  
The girl looked at her friend.  
“I'm sorry, I didn't see him this morning.”  
“Very strange... Thank you, Kitty.”  
Alison arrived at the front door, opening it while waiting for the Captain.  
However, the minutes went by and no signs of him. What was happening that morning?  
Alison slowly closed the front door and headed to the kitchen where Mike was waiting for her with breakfast.

The Captain had started his usual morning run but he had been interrupted. When he had arrived at the end of the main garden, he saw someone standing nearby the lake.  
Even though that someone was a little too far, the Captain knew who that was: Humphrey had his back turned to him and somehow his head was (finally) on his shoulders.  
The Captain slowly approached him: he really didn't know what to tell him and why he was moving closer to him but he went on.

“What do you want?”

_How did he do that?_

The Captain stopped, gripping tightly at his swagger stick in his hands, but no answer came.  
Probably to prevent his head from falling down, the nobleman turned to face him very slowly.  
Silence. The Captain really didn't know what to say.

“Well?” Humphrey folded his arms, a sign of defensiveness.  
“What – what are you doing here?”  
Humphrey laughed sarcastically.  
“Because you care so much, don't you?”  
The Captain gripped at his stick even tighter. He was trying to elaborate a clever answer in his brain but everything was running too fast.  
“You know, after a hundred years, I finally realised! You really remind me of my wife!”  
Said Humphrey, pointing his index finger to the other man.  
“We never really talked and whenever she saw me, she ran away from me.”  
The Captain wanted to reply with something but words failed him.  
“I've had enough of this. Of you not wanting to face reality.”  
Humphrey slowly turned again, facing the lake, avoiding any kind of conversation with the other man.  
“Humphrey, I –”  
He stopped. His mind was completely blank.

_I want to tell you everything but I can't._

“Tell me, what did I do to earn all this hate?”  
The Captain didn't know if he meant in general or just from him.  
“I... I don't hate you.”  
The soldier lowered his gaze to his shoes. He couldn't find the courage to say those precise words.  
Humphrey didn't move, keeping his back turned, clear sign that he wanted to be alone.  
The Captain took a deep breath.  
“Quite the contrary, if I have to be honest.”

Time stopped. For him, at least. All those years, looking out of the window, repressing every single one of his emotions, were coming back like a giant wave ready to drown him and he had to close his eyes to avoid falling on the soft grass, as his knees were starting to fail him.

_I can't do this anymore._

On his cheeks, tears were falling like a river but he didn't want to admit it.  
Suddenly, two hands were touching gently his face.  
“I'm sorry.”  
The Captain opened his eyes, looking those sea blue eyes and that beautiful smirk.  
Coming back to himself, at least that tiny bit that he needed, the Captain took a step back and Humphrey lowered his hands in defeat.  
“I – I have to go now.”  
The Captain really wanted to run away, but suddenly, a hand circling his wrist stopped him.  
Sighing, he lifted his gaze from that hand to the nobleman's face, who was looking at him quizzically.  
Neither of them dared to speak.

_It's a bally shame we won't get to finish the operation together._  
Those words echoed in his brain relentless: where would he find again that kind of courage?  


“Humphrey...”  
“Just be honest. Please. I need it.”  
The nobleman smiled softly.  
“You need it.”  
The Captain shook his head.  
“I can't.”  
Humphrey touched again the other man's cheek.  
“Yes, you can.”  
Humphrey gently pulled him in, their faces too, too close and the Captain felt like he was falling, down, down in the void.

“But you will have to hold me because I might fall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for sticking with me guys, it's been a blast everyone (might come back tho WHO KNOWS)


End file.
